Casefile Clues on Google Books

I was waiting on my husband this morning during his dental visit. Knowing he would be there a while, I grabbed some issues of Casefile Clues I had not read yet. The issue that caught my attention this morning was Volume 1, Number 26 of January 24, 2010 titled, “A Few Searches on Google Books”.

While I had done searches on Google books before, this article gave me some ideas and tips I had not previously considered. I have found myself recently using the “quotes” around search words on every search, and Michael John Neill reminded me how this can limit your results. I plan on going back today and do another search on Google books to “re-search” some names I had done using “quotes”. I am hoping taking the “quotes” off might offer more hits for me to view about my ancestors.

Another technique I thought would be useful is to keep expounding on a search to gain more insight to the original hit. I had never really tried this before and I can see where it can really come in handy to get more out of a hit.

As usual, Michael John Neill included a chart. It just reinforces to me how helpful charts can be in keeping organized. Elyse Doerflinger recently stated in her blog Elyse’s Genealogy Blog that she also used tables to stay organized. So, if these two wonderful genealogist are using charts and tables, I think it is a tool I need to utilize more often.

Google books has millions of books, many that are useful to genealogists. Some books are entirely digitized, while some of the newer books only contain sections to have a “sneak peek” at (due to copyright restrictions). An example of a book I have personally used on Google books is Prentiss County, Mississippi: histories and families. Recently I did an article for Tennessee Genealogical Society’s Ansearchin’ News on David Rice McAnally, an early TN resident that was a Methodist minister. I really wanted a picture of him. The only place I finally found a picture of him was through Google books.

Each issue of Casefile Clues has lots of tips to help researching your ancestors. After reading this issue and seeing all I gleaned from it, I am dedicated myself to catch up on the other issues I have not gotten to yet.

I am so glad to see that I am not the only one behind in reading these. I spent Sunday trying to catch up, but I only got half way through them. I just finshed printing four more to read through today.

I have to agree that he gives many good tips and like you, I need to start using charts to help me out in my research.

Thank you so much for giving me a shout out to my blog! I really appreciate it. Tables are so so helpful and really easy to create in a word processor (or on paper). You can create them for anything and they are really customizable.